The present invention relates to an endoscope which is capable of medically treating an affected body part by partial heating of a body cavity.
It has been recently discovered that malignant tumors, such as cancer, lose the ability to multiply at temperatures over 40.degree. C. Thus, it is possible to treat cancer by heating the affected part. Such a treatment method was reported at the thirty-first convention of the Japanese Society of Cellular Biology held at Osaka University on Nov. 14, 1978 initiated by the research group of the Japan National Institute of Health. Based on this finding, an endoscope has been conventionally proposed having an air supply inlet and a suction outlet at the distal end portion of an endoscope wherein warmed air or water is blown from the air supply inlet to a part of the body cavity, and the warmed air or water is exhausted from the suction outlet, thereby heating a part of the body cavity, that is, the affected part. However, such a conventional endoscope does not have a control means for controlling the temperature of the warmed air or water blown from the air supply inlet. Thus, it has been impossible to heat the part of the body cavity at a constant temperature. There has also been proposed a radiant heating device for heating the affected part utilizing heat rays through glass fiber. Such a device is, for example, disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 25572/77 wherein heat rays from a halogen lamp are converged by a predetermined method, and the affected part is heated through glass fiber. This reference, however, discloses no means for maintaining the affected part at a constant temperature.
Accordingly, it has been impossible, with a conventional device, to develop a practical treating method for destroying cancer cells alone by maintaining the part of the body cavity at a specific temperature at which normal cells of a human body thrive but at which cancer cells will be destroyed.
It is also a general practice to surgically remove the affected part by inserting an electric scalpel through the channel of an endoscope. The purpose of this is to remove the affected part by surgery. Therefore, the temperature of the body part touched by the electric scalpel will be raised to several hundred degrees. Thus, it is dangerous in that normal cells which contact the electric scalpel will be destroyed. Further, since the electric scalpel is inserted through the channel of an endoscope, the shape of the electric scalpel is limited to a certain range. Accordingly, the removal of the affected part is impossible if the shape of the malignant growth is, for example, flat. It is sometimes impossible to remove the part for preventing hazards such as excessive bleeding depending on the location of the tumor.